Well folks, after a few years of reading, observing, and gathering information from as many sources as I could get, this is what I've come up with: U152's appearance in Italy is a best fit with the Bell Beaker Culture, especially for two of its main sub-clades Z36 and Z49. The L2 subclade seems to be a better fit for Urnfield and specifically a group called "Rhin-Suisse-France Oriental" or RSFO. I've posted my theory complete with a U152+Bell Beakers map. Here is the link:

Well folks, after a few years of reading, observing, and gathering information from as many sources as I could get, this is what I've come up with: U152's appearance in Italy is a best fit with the Bell Beaker Culture, especially for two of its main sub-clades Z36 and Z49. The L2 subclade seems to be a better fit for Urnfield and specifically a group called "Rhin-Suisse-France Oriental" or RSFO. I've posted my theory complete with a U152+Bell Beakers map. Here is the link:

As always, a friendly and lively debate is welcome. The wording is still a little rough, but if you notice any errors, please send me a PM.

Great work, Richard!

You write

Quote from: Richard Rocca

Early Bell Beakers are thought to have reached Italy from coastal France.

Is this from Lemercier? What was going on in SE France at the time? I mean, were there conflicts with other Beaker groups, or with others that facilitated the immigration to Cisalpine Gaul? Was there an attraction?

Well folks, after a few years of reading, observing, and gathering information from as many sources as I could get, this is what I've come up with: U152's appearance in Italy is a best fit with the Bell Beaker Culture, especially for two of its main sub-clades Z36 and Z49. The L2 subclade seems to be a better fit for Urnfield and specifically a group called "Rhin-Suisse-France Oriental" or RSFO. I've posted my theory complete with a U152+Bell Beakers map. Here is the link:

As always, a friendly and lively debate is welcome. The wording is still a little rough, but if you notice any errors, please send me a PM.

That was a very enjoyable read, well considered and focussed. I do however recall the variance in Italy at one stage being described as much lower than north of the Alps. That would post some problems if U152 is seen a beaker related north of the Alps.

Well folks, after a few years of reading, observing, and gathering information from as many sources as I could get, this is what I've come up with: U152's appearance in Italy is a best fit with the Bell Beaker Culture, especially for two of its main sub-clades Z36 and Z49. The L2 subclade seems to be a better fit for Urnfield and specifically a group called "Rhin-Suisse-France Oriental" or RSFO. I've posted my theory complete with a U152+Bell Beakers map. Here is the link:

As always, a friendly and lively debate is welcome. The wording is still a little rough, but if you notice any errors, please send me a PM.

That was a very enjoyable read, well considered and focussed. I do however recall the variance in Italy at one stage being described as much lower than north of the Alps. That would post some problems if U152 is seen a beaker related north of the Alps.

I've haven't looked at U152 STR variance for a while, but the last I ran the numbers, I think I was coming up with with U152 variance highest in SE France, not Italy, although the Alps themselves or just north as well as just west (SE France) were all candidates. The one difference is I was getting that L2 has higher diversity in Italy.

Richard, where do you have L2's diversity as highest? I don't think there were huge differences.

RRocca writes: “A Z56+ kit from Spain has the toponoymic surname of 'Corsi' which is clearly Italo-Corsican”.

I am at school now and I am not able to respond deeply, but I’ll do it in the next time.Certainly I was the first to say that “Corsi” was an Italian surname and to ascribe him to the Italian pool rather than to the Spanish one. But, also in this case, what Rocca says risks to be general, found on nothing.The Italian surname “Corsi” probably has nothing to do with Corsica, but with the name “Accursio”, “Corso” (see the famous Corso Donati at the Dante’s times). From Corsica derives the surname ”Del Corso”, diffused in my zone, which we pronounce with “ò” but we should pronounce with “ó”. Of course only a paper trail could demonstrate where this surname come from. And about every Rocca’s statement we’d need of specific proofs beyond what he vaguely says.By watching his map, it seems to me that Italian R-U152 has nothing to do with France, and above all South one, which is in a place of progressively decreasing diffusion. It would seem that this haplogroup is more diffused in that Western zone of Italy like the G2a4 of Ötzi, i.e. where the most ancient Italian haplogroup retired, and I hope nobody wants to support that Ötzi came from Caucasus. This haplogroup, and many others, are mostly and above all Italian ones.

Well folks, after a few years of reading, observing, and gathering information from as many sources as I could get, this is what I've come up with: U152's appearance in Italy is a best fit with the Bell Beaker Culture, especially for two of its main sub-clades Z36 and Z49. The L2 subclade seems to be a better fit for Urnfield and specifically a group called "Rhin-Suisse-France Oriental" or RSFO. I've posted my theory complete with a U152+Bell Beakers map. Here is the link:

As always, a friendly and lively debate is welcome. The wording is still a little rough, but if you notice any errors, please send me a PM.

Great work, Richard!

You write

Quote from: Richard Rocca

Early Bell Beakers are thought to have reached Italy from coastal France.

Is this from Lemercier? What was going on in SE France at the time? I mean, were there conflicts with other Beaker groups, or with others that facilitated the immigration to Cisalpine Gaul? Was there an attraction?

The earlier beakers are similar to those found along the Mediterranean coast, from Spain to Sicily. Lemercier has proposed this route, but it is an obvious one based on the beaker styles. Afterwards, late Beakers start to resemble those from Central Europe.

There would be three main attractions: The Po Valley has always been very fertile, there were well documented metal deposits from Liguria to Tuscany to Slovenia, and northern and central Italy offer the easiest access to the Adriatic and trade with the east.

I have not done a deep dive into variance since the discovery of the Z-series SNPs. There are still too few tested people to really come up with anything concrete.

Interesting, but don't think a first name of "Corsus" from Pisa has a link to Corsica, where the very translation of "Corsican" is spelled "Corsu"? Any surname derived from it would have changed to more local variants ending in 'o' or 'i'.

Interesting, but don't think a first name of "Corsus" from Pisa has a link to Corsica, where the very translation of "Corsican" is spelled "Corsu"? Any surname derived from it would have changed to more local variants ending in 'o' or 'i'.

As I have said, I think that the unique surname which may be linked to Corsica is “Del Corso” if pronounced “Del Còrso”, because an inhabitant of Corsica is a “Còrso”, whereas the name “Corso” is pronounced /córso/. The Italian surname Corsi is diffused overall in Italy and we couldn’t know its origin without a paper trail. But there is another question which could give breath to the Celtists/Germanists. As we see from the most ancient documents, many of these persons get a Lombard origin: the brother of Corso is named Forestano (Latin names), but Forestano’s wife is named Garsenda (Lombard name), who is the daughter of Ansoaldo (Lombard name). Corsino is count of Gangalandi (toponym of Lombard origin).Of course we’d want to know how many of these people are of Lombard origin or took only a Lombard name.

Interesting, but don't think a first name of "Corsus" from Pisa has a link to Corsica, where the very translation of "Corsican" is spelled "Corsu"? Any surname derived from it would have changed to more local variants ending in 'o' or 'i'.

As I have said, I think that the unique surname which may be linked to Corsica is “Del Corso” if pronounced “Del Còrso”, because an inhabitant of Corsica is a “Còrso”, whereas the name “Corso” is pronounced /córso/. The Italian surname Corsi is diffused overall in Italy and we couldn’t know its origin without a paper trail. But there is another question which could give breath to the Celtists/Germanists. As we see from the most ancient documents, many of these persons get a Lombard origin: the brother of Corso is named Forestano (Latin names), but Forestano’s wife is named Garsenda (Lombard name), who is the daughter of Ansoaldo (Lombard name). Corsino is count of Gangalandi (toponym of Lombard origin).Of course we’d want to know how many of these people are of Lombard origin or took only a Lombard name.

I think there is a pretty good case that U152 initially entered Italy before Celtic had emerged as a separate language from Italic. I always have gotten the impression that Italic is closer to the IE root than Celtic and that it was Celtic that took a further step away from the roots. Kind of gives me the impression that the common root was italic-like and Celtic developed later from it in some contact network north (not sure how far north) of the Alps I might be wrong with that but its the impression I get. Lucitanian in Portugal seems to be considered such an Italic-like dialect. My feeling is that from an Italic-like root the west Med. network kept to the root while to the north of it in an area possibly centred on NW France I think Celtic emerged in the post-beaker Bronze Age networks of that area.